Component standardization in a distributed workstation CAD environment

Design of today´s electronic systems has evolved into significant usage of computer-aided design (CAD) equipment. These CAD systems have large libraries of components. Library sizes range from hundreds to thousands of components. The systems allow designers to freely select components from these libraries, simulating and analyzing performance as the design progresses. Most CAD system libraries contain a large selection of available manufactured components. With this large selection, comes the problem of standardization. Many of these library components have similar performance characteristics and a wide variety of features. In fact, many of the components are almost identical, varying widely in performance, price, number of suppliers, availability, quality and reliability. This paper describes a technique used to achieve both online standardization and complete flexibility to use the entire CAD library